3 in 30 January update

My goals for January were:

1. Journal my food 6 out of 7 days a week.

I did pretty well with this. I figure I journaled maybe 4 days a week. I really learned a lot from the journaling though!

2. I will set up and complete a morning and evening routine.

I have been much more consistent with this and am excited to report I really have gotten in the habit.

3. Write 3 blog posts a week. I have also done much better with my blogging. I have written many posts this month!!!!

February:

Continuing with my 3 main goals for the year my goals will be as follow:

Weightloss:

1. Have an average calorie deficit of 500 per day. I have a GoWear, which I will wear, and I will also track my food. Over a week, I would like to burn 500 more calories a day than I eat.  Over the course of a week, I think this is doable.

Household tidiness:

2. My goal is during week days to spend Alligator’s nap time doing 15 minutes of household work, then 15 minutes of me time. I have been doing this the last few days and it has really helped.

Blogging

3. The goals is to do at least 1 post a week that is a project or toy that I have created. Whether it be a sensory tub or a game. Obviously, probably everything has already been done somewhere, but I will try to think up my own project!

Tot school 1-23-11

Alligator is a week away from turning 2!!!!!

We have a new system for tot school, we will see how it works! I have this shelf that I place his trays on.

The top 2 shelves have his trays. I am trying to teach him that we play with those only with Mommy or Daddy. Since Alligator plays independently in the play room at times, I have kept the small pieces in bag or sealed container so that he doesn’t just spill them on the floor.

The bottom 2 shelves just have some toys on that I will rotate. These are more for independent play.

On the top shelf this day was:

The feeding frog activity from

 

an activity for putting sticks in a cheese container (these happen to have hearts on the end)

And the 3rd activity is about learning the names for facial features (he know what they are, but we are working on their names)

The second shelf has

First words puzzles, our sensory bin and a heart game from Time for Tots.

Alligator loves the sensory bin.

He even will pull it down and carry it to me!

Here he is feeding a frog

    

matching the hearts (which I am amazed he could do)

Playing with his Tag Jr (I am setting out the reader and 1 book at a time. This is on his shelf. He chooses it a lot.

 

Another independent activity he chooses is his music box. It is stored under this couch, and he knows how to pull it out! He loves the drums!

Alex made a Valentine (again from Time for Tots) I added some of our stickers to it, and he was able to pull them off the paper (the stickers were real thick, so I think that helped) But he loved, doing it by himself!

  

FInally Alligator has been well enough to go play in the snow. He has never, ever been out it in before, because he has always been to sick. The ear tubes have been such a blessing.

To see what others are doing click the picture below!

Preschool Corner 1-21-11

To see what others are doing for Preschool Corner, click the picture above.

We had snow this week. So Monkey had fun sledding in our front yard.

The only other planned activity was the sensory bin. You can read my post about it here.

I am going to plan some activities to do with Monkey for next week. I spent this week really fine tuning my Alligator activities, which you can read bout in my next post.

Valentine Sensory Bin

I have finally made something myself! Alligator and Monkey are both infatuated with our Valentine Sensory tub. Alligator chooses it at least once a day.

The items in it all came from the dollar isle at Target. It includes:

• scatter hearts (I bought 3 boxes, pink, purple and red) (these were 2.50… who knew not everything was a dollar in the dollar isle)
• some big hearts (for making garland)
• a pack or 2 of felt heart stickers, (obviously they still have the paper on the back)
• some valentine themed erasers
• valentine ribbon (I cut it to different lengths, thinking that Monkey could sort them from biggest to smallest, we have yet to do that though)
• and some heart shaped containers.

They love it! I add some cups and Alligator loves to transfer. He was transferring them to the rug until I gave him another bin to fill.

They even enjoy playing with it together!

 

However, they get a little wild, and then it gets put away. I guess they’ll learn if I keep putting it away when they make too much of a mess.

I have to say, the boys love a sensory tub, but if the filler is to small then it is really hard to clean up, because they don’t keep it in the bin. So these hearts make easier clean up.

Tot-School 1-17-11

Tot School has been busy this week, but mostly because Alligator has been very sick. On Tuesday he was vomiting and had a fever of 103. Alligator had his surgery this week and got tubes in his ears. He has been much better since. I pray that the tubes help him stay healthy, and help his speech. So a lot of this week was spent in pajamas.

I must say, I am amazed with this surgery. He is a different child! He has pretty much been sick since mid-October. Man, when he is well….he wants to be busy. He constantly wants to have something to do. Which is a huge change, while sick he spent most of his time cuddling me, or watching TV. Not anymore….busy boy!

Now I know my ABC

from Totally Tots

Totally Tots has a unite on A is for Astronaut. So we followed that. I made an “A” sensory tub.

Alligator enjoyed the song and playing with the magnets to “5 little Astronauts”

We made rocket ships to go with the theme. Check out my post here.

Learning Games:

I would like to use trays but I don’t have a seperate area that is just for “school” so Alligator would have access to them all the time. So these would be on trays if I had a way to keep him out of them normally.

Straws and a cheese container ( I have seen this in so many times, and we finally finished off a cheese container!!!!!)

Time For Tots Activity: I am amazed Alligator can match colors. YAY….

Playing with our Teach my Baby Kit. This is for teaching early numbers. But they are animal hand puppets and they have a board with holes that you can put them in and take them out of. He even learned which animals go in which holes. He put them in and out for over 20 minutes. I tried to get him to say their names, or sounds but he didn’t. But we are working on it.

Time for Tots activity. Tiny objects that I put in ice for him to play with. He transferred with a spoon, he felt the ice, and picked out items. This was a big hit!

He colored at his art table.

       

He pulled out his music bin many times and has a ball playing songs. I am starting to think he really will be a musician. I think he be a percussionist!     

He rode on Rody ( as you can see he is still sick…in fact a couple hours after this he had a very high fever)

 

He had a blast building and crashing cup towers with Daddy and Monkey

Please click the link to see what others have done for Tot-School!.

Preschool Corner 1-15-11

To see what others did for Preschool corner, check out the link above!

I was really thinking we didn’t do much this week. But now looking at the pictures I realize how busy we were. Alligator had tubes put in on Thursday, so it was a very stressful week here in our house. But I am happy to see so much learning going on!

Even with Alligator being so sick there was a lot of learning with brother this week:

Stacking cups with Daddy and Alligator. The funnest part was knocking the tower down!

This picture is really shadowed, but we hid some items in ice, and the boys had fun playing with the items and feeling the cold, cold ice!

A is for Astronaut, from Totally Tots

(click here to see the unit)

A Sensory Bin:

We added an old cheese container, Monkey loves to shake out the rice.

5 little Astronauts. Monkey enjoyed putting up the astronauts as we sang the song.

 

Working on our Rocket (click here to see post)

We shot rockets to the moon. Using a straw and a smaller straw with a rocket shape taped to it. You blow the smaller straw out of the bigger straw to see if you can get it to land on the moon. I thought Monkey would love this activity, but it only lasted a few minutes.

 

Teach My Preschooler

Practicing writing numbers and shapes

    

Playing remote control cars with Daddy

 

Preschool Fun

Monkey came home from preschool telling me that they ice skated, but putting bags on their feet and sliding around on the carpet. He wanted to do it at home too. So of course we did!